


Fall Like Rain

by kingsofeverything (FullOnLarrie)



Series: Don't Want Shelter [5]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, POV switch, don't want shelter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 19:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16226183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullOnLarrie/pseuds/kingsofeverything
Summary: This is Harry's POV from the first day that he and Louis are at the beach house.Originally posted on Tumblr, but I wanted it here too.If you haven’t read the rest of this series, please start withPart 1.





	Fall Like Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YesIsAWorld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesIsAWorld/gifts).



> For Nic for always being amazing!❤️

For probably the tenth time that day, Harry’s phone rings while both of his hands are full and busy. So he lets it ring, and finishes hanging the rectangle of plywood over the last window of the big two-story house they’ve been working on for the last hour. Seven down, five to go.

He and his crew should finish up in time for him to swing by for some supplies from Liam’s store, and get to the beach house to get the furniture inside and the shutters down before sunset. It’d be easier if he let someone help him, but he’d rather do it himself.

He’s always been particular about that house.

The missed call is from Liam, so Harry doesn’t call him back right away. Instead, he sends him a quick text _Working. What’s up?_ and gets started on the next house on his list. It’s later than Harry thought it’d be when he finally finishes readying the last house on his list, and his phone rings again, as soon as he sits down behind the wheel of his truck.

“Hey, Li, sorry I got caught up and forgot to call you.”

“No problem, man,” Liam responds quickly. “Need a favor though.”

“Yeah? What can I do for you?” Harry grins and wipes his sweat from his forehead. He hasn’t worked outside like this in a long time.

“Come help me board up the store?”

“What?” Harry frowns and then purposefully relaxes his forehead and rubs at the wrinkle between his eyebrows. “I sent my crew—”

“Yeah, I was busy then, so I told them to go home. Can you?”

“Fine.” Harry sighs and rolls his eyes at himself. Of course he’ll help Liam. He can’t even feel inconvenienced about it, especially when he needed to stop there anyway.

—

As soon as they start closing up the store, Liam says, “Louis is here.”

Those three short words shouldn’t have Harry jerking up out of a crouch and spinning around so fast that he kicks his open toolbox, sending everything in it flying in a million directions. He only doesn’t topple completely to the ground because the side of the building is close enough to catch him.

“What?” Harry looks around once more to be sure. “Where?”

“I drove him over to the beach house this afternoon. Got his motorcycle parked around back.”

“Are you—” Harry stops to take a deep breath. He closes his eyes, whispering, “You’re serious?”

“Yeah, sorry. Seemed like a good idea at the time. You were whining—”

“I wasn’t whining.”

“About him not calling about the storm and then he showed up and I just figured…”

“You just figured.” Harry clenches his jaw. He can already feel tension building in his spine, a reaction to the mere proximity of Louis.

“Listen… Don’t kill me. Maybe you’ll convince him to sell?”

“If Louis agrees to sell this house, I’ll personally and thoroughly kiss your ass, Liam.”

Liam cackles and wheezes a little as he says, “You sound like a man who doesn’t intend to follow through.”

“Because Louis won’t sell the house. At this point I’m pretty sure he’s only holding onto it out of stubborness. And meanness.” Harry shakes his head and doesn’t speak over the noise of his drill. Once they’ve finished covering that window, he says. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t end up killing each other.”

Liam clears his throat and says, “You don’t have to stay there.”

“Of course I do, Liam.” Harry picks up a piece of plywood and hauls it to the next window, raising his voice to carry over the wind. “He probably doesn’t even know how to close the shutters. And if I don’t make sure the house is ready for the storm, I’ll be liable for any damage through the rental company.”

By the time they get the plywood up over all of the store’s windows, the wind has picked up and it’s long since dark. Harry drives way too fast and just barely makes it over the drawbridge before they close it for the storm. He’s halfway up the stairs at the beach house when he realizes that he didn’t get a cooler of ice from Liam. At least he remembered coffee.

The house is dark, even the outside light is off, and silent except for the hum of the air conditioner, and the porch furniture has all been moved inside the house. There are grocery bags on the counter and a cooler—Liam’s cooler—full of ice is on the floor in the kitchen. Harry clears off the counter and lines up the flashlights, batteries, candles, and lighters, then he turns the deadbolt lock and flips the light back off.

Harry stands at the edge of the darkened hall and shivers. It’s incredibly cold in the house, but he leaves the thermostat alone, knowing that Louis had to be the one to set it so low. He doesn’t want to do something to irritate him first thing. He makes his way down the hall, stepping lightly in his sneakers, and pausing at the open door of the master bedroom. It’s too dark to make out anything other than shadows, but he recognizes the shape that Louis makes under the heavy comforter. The slope of his shoulder where it peeks from under the edge of the sheet is familiar to him in a way that he doesn’t quite understand.

He hauls his bag into his bedroom and takes a long, hot shower, hoping to relax the muscles that saw more use that day than they have in years. Still, he sets his alarm for five o’clock and lays out his running shorts so that he’s ready for the morning.

When his alarm goes off, Harry silences it immediately and is dressed, down the stairs, and halfway across the dunes, when he remembers where he is and why and who else is in the house.

His steps stutter for a second, but he pushes through and focuses on running and when he thinks of anything, it’s about the dunes and whether they’ll hold, if it’ll be low or high tide or somewhere in between when the storm hits, when they’ll lose power, and if his apartment will be alright.

Around the mile mark, his body takes over and he has to fight harder not to think about Louis. So he thinks about Louis.

He’s single, or at least Gemma said so when he texted her the night before—a series of exclamation points followed by a skull and crossbones emoji and the words _I’m stuck at the beach house with Louis until the storm passes._ In fact, that’s all she said. It took her fifteen minutes to answer his text at all, and when she did, her only response was _He’s single._ And then she ignored his follow up texts and calls. It was after midnight, but he considered it an emergency situation. Gemma apparently did not agree.

It doesn’t matter if Louis is single. There are more important things. Like making it through the hurricane without killing each other.

The sun comes up on Harry’s way back, at the beginning of his last mile, and he slows down to watch it. It’s too cloudy to really even see it, but the light and the way it shifts with the clouds is beautiful.

Harry’s silent as he slips off his running shoes on the porch and enters the house. It takes him a few minutes to get the bacon into the oven, but once it’s there, he heads for his bathroom. He showers efficiently and pulls on a pair of old basketball shorts, tugging a plain white t-shirt over his head.

Every time he walks through a doorway, he expects to see Louis. There’s no way to know how things will go when they finally come face to face. The last time they saw each other was six years ago after Fizzy’s wedding. Louis was with his boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend Harry supposes, and Harry overheard Louis drunkenly ranting about how horrible he thought Harry was. That was after he spent the entire wedding ceremony and reception making a complete fool of himself in front of Louis.

Not this time.

Once the bacon’s ready, Harry doesn’t know what to do. He assumed Louis would be awake, he’s always been an early riser, but when Harry peeks, he’s still sleeping peacefully, hair greyer than it was the last time Harry saw it, but messy in the same way it’s been for more than thirty years. Harry sighs and returns to the kitchen, then starts the coffee pot before walking barefoot back down to the beach.

It’s his favorite place and he doesn’t come here enough. Even with the office right up the road. He misses it when it’s right here.

The sky isn’t menacing. It’s just grey and cloudy. It isn’t raining yet. And though the wind is picking up, it’s nothing really. It won’t be bad until later.

He turns to look in the direction of the pier and in his peripheral vision, he sees Louis coming over the dunes. A gust of wind blows and the soft sand flies, Harry turns his head away.

Nothing is ever easy with Louis, which is why Harry takes a few minutes to collect himself, even though he’s been waiting for this confrontation. If Louis would’ve just called to check in about the house and the storm, Harry would’ve told him not to worry. But Louis didn’t call and Harry wasn’t about to. Still, he can’t believe that Louis drove all the way down here. And he doesn’t understand why.

He spins around slowly and starts in Louis’ direction. No use in putting off the inevitable.

In cut-off sweatpants and a white t-shirt, if it wasn’t for the color of his hair, Louis would look exactly the same as he did twenty-five years before when they spent spring break together. That week ended spectacularly.

Harry feels his eyebrows draw together and this time he doesn’t bother trying to relax his face. Instead, he scowls. “Why are you here, Louis?”

“I don’t know, Styles. Maybe because when I called the rental company to make sure the house was going to be set for the storm, they said that you specifically told them not to do it.” Louis scowls right back at him. “So here I am.”

Louis turns and walks back through the dunes.

Damn it.

There’s a good chance, if Harry checks his missed calls and voicemails, he’ll find one from Katie letting him know that Louis called. He follows behind Louis, huffing impatiently when Louis rinses his legs for the third time. Finally, Louis shuts off the water and steps aside. “Why are you here?”

Harry rolls his eyes so hard that he actually rolls his head as well, then turns the shower back on to rinse his feet. “Same as you. I’m here to get the house ready. I told Katie I’d take care of it because I was planning to stay here during the storm.”

Louis crosses his arms and takes a step closer to Harry. “I was here first, so you can leave.”

He sounds so sure of himself, as if by simply saying it, Harry will obey. Harry shakes his head and says, “They closed the drawbridge right after I drove across last night. It won’t be open again until after the storm passes.”

Louis clenches his jaw and Harry watches the muscles in his neck flex. He blows out his breath and his hair flutters against his forehead. It would make it easier to get through the storm if they could just get along, but at this point, Harry isn’t even sure they know how. He wonders if it would be possible to pinpoint exactly where things went wrong between them. Or maybe so many things have gone wrong that there’s no way to track it. 

“Fine,” Louis grits out. He turns and jogs up the stairs.

For a second, Harry stares after him, then he follows right behind, thinking of the bacon he made and the coffee he brewed earlier. When he walks through the door, Louis is standing in front of the fridge, as if trying to will it to open. Harry’s manners get the best of him and he speaks before thinking, “I made bacon.”

“Is that what this is?” Louis points at the plate on the counter and scratches his chin and Harry wonders if one of them will end up swimming for the mainland before the storm passes.

“Fuck off. I was going to offer you some, but not if you’re going to be a dick.”

“Sorry.” Louis grumbles and hops up onto one of the stools in front of the counter. “Force of habit.”

“Yeah, well…” Harry takes the pan from the drying rack and sets it on the stove to heat and he wonders how much of the hostility between them is force of habit and how much, on his part anyway, is bitterness over their past and a future that he once thought they might have.

When he looks up, he sees Louis sitting at the counter watching him work. For a moment, he’s reminded of that week they spent together over spring break. In the mornings, while everyone else slept, they talked. It had been just like every summer Harry remembered from his teenage years and even before that. He’d always felt a connection with Louis, and they’d always gotten along so well, even with years between summers. It was easy for them. Or it had been.

That last night, Louis and his boyfriend had gone out on a date, just the two of them, and Harry and his friends had stayed at the beach house. They got wasted on watermelon soaked in cheap vodka, ate Dominos pizza, and, like stupid kids, they’d run naked down the beach and into the surf.

The following morning, the alarm clock beside his bed went off, and he crawled out of bed. Hungover and feeling like absolute shit, he’d showered and, though his hangover hadn’t gotten better in the slightest, he dragged himself out to the kitchen where he found Louis waiting for him to make breakfast.

At first, it was okay. Harry smiled when he was supposed to and hoped it didn’t look like he was flinching or grimacing as Louis talked about his date. But before Harry’d finished his first cup of coffee, Louis made a joke about Harry’s habit of changing his major every other semester. Harry overreacted. God, he’d been an absolute asshole.

Louis hit him in the face with a raw egg and he’s pretty sure he deserved it.

Louis had been right though, about his inability to commit to anything. And Harry had ruined everything.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> [Tumblr post,](http://fullonlarrie.tumblr.com/post/178838896485/fall-like-rain-part-5-of-dont-want-shelter-after) if you’d like to reblog.


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